Call for more investment in ‘future’

ISLAMABAD - Youth are our bright future as they have the potential to face the future challenges and by investing in young people we can tap their potential for a bright future and environmental protection. While on the other side, poverty, inequality and human rights violations have emerged as the bottlenecks in the way of ensuring the society’s development.These remarks were expressed by experts during a dialogue for environment held at the Baidari-e-Fiker Forum here on Sunday. The event was jointly arranged by the Environmental Watch Trust (EWT) and Pakistan Association of Green Agricultural Journalists (PAGAJ) in connection with the World Population Day.Senior Vice Chairperson EWT Shaheen Akhtar was guest of honour while Chairperson EWT Shumaila Javed Bhatti was the keynote speaker. In her remarks, Shumaila said that climate change and environment are complex rather critical issues confronted by majority of the countries.She called for more investments on youth population, who are about 40 per cent of the total population, as they are the force on which we can lay the foundation of a strong Pakistan.Chairman DOSTEE, an NGO, Dr Sajid Khakwani, said that large societies consume more resources than small ones, but consumption patterns and technology choices may account for more environmental harms than sheer numbers of people. Economies tend to become more high polluting during early stages of economic development because they first adopt inexpensive technologies that are relatively inefficient like simple manufacturing systems and basic consumer goods such as cars.As income rises and technologies diffuse through society, consumers start to value environmental quality more highly and become more able to pay for it, he said.Chairman PAGAJ Javed Bhatti said that population pressures have degraded some 2 billion hectares of cultivable land across the world - an area the size of USA and Canada put together. Global warming causes droughts and also disrupts agriculture he said adding in every environmental sector, conditions have either failed to improve, or are getting worse.